DA: Bay Terraces shooting by cops justified

San Diego  Four San Diego police officers and one from National City were legally justified when they fatally shot a man in May who robbed a gas station, shot a Bay Terraces resident and held two others hostage, the District Attorney’s Office has determined.

Adolfo Tovar’s final act was to back a car through a garage door and speed toward a number of SWAT officers. Five officers fired 27 rounds at the car, hitting Tovar 16 times, according to a report made public on Wednesday.

Tovar, 47, of National City, was shot in the head, neck, chest, back and arms, the report by District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said.

Toxicology tests showed Tovar had methamphetamine in his system and a blood-alcohol level of 0.07 percent, just below the 0.08 percent legal limit for driving.

Dumanis sent the report to San Diego Police Chief Bill Lansdowne and National City Police Chief Manny Rodriguez on Jan. 16, saying their officers bear no criminal liability for the shooting.

“Based on the totality of the circumstances, the officers reasonably believed Mr. Tovar was an immediate threat to them, as well as a continued threat to the community,” Dumanis said in the report.

The incident started the morning of May 24, when a man robbed a Bay Terraces gas station, fired a sawed-off rifle in the air and fled in a stolen car. He crashed the car less than a mile away, forced his way into a stranger’s home and shot him in one foot when the resident refused to aid his escape.

The fleeing man confronted another resident, then was briefly cornered in the yard by police. An officer fired a 40mm sponge round at him, but the man escaped and ran into a house on Woodridge Way.

SWAT officers surrounded the house with two hostages and the fugitive inside. Officers helped a woman slip out a bathroom window and a male resident hid in another bathroom.

Officers yelled in to the fugitive, “It doesn’t have to end this way,” Dumanis’ report said. The man inside, identified later as Tovar, answered, “Yes, it does have to end this way.”

Seconds later, a car blasted backward through the closed garage door. It was headed toward the SWAT officers when four of them, Jerome Joaquin, James Pickett, Noe Cordero and Jason Scott, opened fire. National City Officer Camilo Gutierrez also fired.

At the time, Joaquin had been with the San Diego Police Department for 28 years, Pickett for 30 years, Cordero for 14 years and Scott for 12 years. Gutierrez had been with the National City agency for five months and was in training at the time, the report said.